Programs exist to help companies access
the capabilities of the federal laboratories.

Notably, Cooperative Research and
Development Agreements (CRADAs)
provide mechanisms for companies to
collaborate with national laboratories,
and Strategic Partnership Projects (SPP)
enable companies to sponsor research and
development at national laboratories directly.

Both programs require companies to
invest private resources, either as in-kind
contributions to collaborations or as direct
project funding.

One overarching opportunity, then,
is for increased federal investment in
collaborations with private sector partners
to make the laboratories more accessible to
companies with limited financial resources.
The Argonne National Laboratory, for
example, has supported a realization of this
situation by implementing their Executive
in Residence Program, where a company
employed scientists working in close
proximity at the federal lab during the
later stages of technical development. The
opportunity is then readily positioned for
“spinning off” into its own entity—or to
support future strategic initiatives in a well-established company.

Additionally, there are other programs that
offer extension or expansion pilot programs
to support Technology Transfer, such as the
Small Business Voucher Program (SBV), the
Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF)
and the various Small Business Innovation
Research (SBIR) and Small Business
Technology Transfer (STTR) programs.

These programs target collaborations with
federal laboratories that enable increased
access to the laboratories and facilitate joint
projects that can result in new products
and subsequently the creation of new jobs.
Expansion of other programs, such as the
DOE Energy Investor Center and the DHS
Transition to Practice (TTP) program,
increase the visibility of the innovations and
capabilities of the federal laboratories. At the
same time, they help raise awareness of the
commercialization opportunities that exist in
the federal laboratories.

Viewing the start-up realistically

If a project is pitched as perfection but
delivers great, the project fails. If the project
is pitched as good but delivers great, the
project succeeds. Start-ups need to reign in
how much perfection-pitching they perform.
Investors, partners and acquirers need to
view start-ups more realistically than their
perception of a start-up’s ability to make
overnight transformations.

Aligning definitions of success and support
at the stages of technology progression is
critical to achieving positive outcomes.
Mission alignment needs to continually
improve. An increasing amount of research
is being performed by universities and
government so, as a result, there needs to be
a protocol developed upfront to allow for
alignment with established companies and
any start-ups that ultimately commercialize
the technology and discover marketing
positioning for an output product.

Terms and agreements are also criticalcomponents for Technology Transferbecause with investment in research, costsoccur immediately yet revenue is future anduncertain. Any licensing terms need to sharethis inevitable risk, and provide the freedomfor the licensor to pursue other licensees incases where a commercialization effort doesnot meet certain financial goals.

What kind of regulatory/mandatory
changes need to take place?

Federal laboratory scientists are often
willing to help companies adopt their
technologies, as evidenced by the success
of the Argonne Laboratory’s Executive in
Residence Program, as well as MITRE’s firsthand experience of partnering with them
to develop and nurture opportunities. It
takes a team to deliver Technology Transfer
successfully.

However, federal labs have limited
funding available to support engagements
with private sector companies unless
incorporated directly into the license
itself. Mandating availability of increased
funding of this kind, as well as reducing
the administrative burden associated with
accessing those funds, would drive greater
private sector engagement with the federal
laboratories, and thereby increase the
commercial impacts of federal laboratory
research and development.

In terms of mandatory changes to
facilitate the delivery of and derive benefits
from new innovative products in healthcare,
for example, supported by a connected
Digital IT architecture, investment in
a standard interoperability framework
would be highly significant. Currently,
the landscape is diverse, and pointedly
so in healthcare, where hospitals each
operate individually with different system
installations that limit the ability to interface
seamlessly across institutions. Under these
circumstances, it is impossible for any
new innovations to be easily accessible
by all points of the domain due to lack of
an interoperability mindset. In addition,
encouraging a more patient-centered
architecture would lead to an increasingly
robust innovation environment for
healthcare. In fact, it has been shown that
having patients involved in their healthcare
improves results and lowers costs.